Two pedals prove difficult for one Korean actor and Tesla owner

One Korean actor is learning the hard way that you can't completely blame Tesla for driver error

by
Clayton Seams | January 3, 2017

Small

Medium

Large

If you’re going to blame your car for driving through your garage wall by itself, you’d do well not to blame a car that automatically uploads driver inputs to a cloud where the manufacturer can see it.

South Korean actor Son Ji-chang recently posted photos to Facebook of his Tesla Model X rammed through his garage wall and protruding into his living room. Ji-chang claims the car took off by itself and went on a murderous quest towards the sofa. But unlike most cars, a Tesla is always recording driver actions and the manufacturer can pull that data very easily.

Information such as pedal movement, speed, steering wheel position and even whether or not the drivers hands were on the wheel, were all recorded. According to the National Post, the accelerator pedal was pressed down to 100 per cent at the time of the crash. It would seem he mixed up the stoppy-blocky pedal with the speedy-skinny pedal.

Various “unintended acceleration” scandals date back to Audi and Toyota‘s debacles. Both were later proved to be a combination of over-excited media and driver error.